Drowning
by G. Sun
Summary: The story behind Risa's overbearing curse is here at last! As she sinks further into the Darkness, Risa is forced to relive her painful childhood memories. Will the broken Keyblade warrior pull herself out of the Darkness before it takes her whole body? Read after SINKING.
1. Chapter 1

**When people are alone in the dark, they sink to their lowest point. That's the theme here today.**

I do not want to remember that day. The day that man gave me a curse on my arm, I would rather die here alone. I am not going to remember it, I do not need a reminder of how weak I was, compared to now. I am getting out of here, that is all. Kicking my arms and slashing at the Heartless, I make my way upward as more Heartless crowd around. More claw at my face as the Keyblade slashes through their thick walls but these scratches cannot be made permanent. I use a Heartless as a stepping stone in the midst of the chaos, lighting the Keyblade over my head. It makes a hole and the light, dimmer than before, shines through.

Jumping up, I push down on the Heartless beneath my feet to make my way towards the hole. I feel more claws around my foot when I finally pull myself out and the light being nibbled away by the shadow creatures of yellow eyes. I sprint towards the light but the Heartless on my leg suddenly become heavy. Looking back, they have created thick goo that is pulling me away from the light. But I cannot afford to lose the light, it is supposed to bring me home to everyone, losing it would mean losing everything. That is what I risked when the Angel Island intruder led me here. My hand tries to snatch it but if I continue I am going to lose my foot. Closing my eyes I make a jump for the light and feel a warm mist on my fingertips as the light barely touches it.

_I was a child, five years old, free of most problems. By then Father's method of teaching had changed me from a cheerful child to one who could barely crack a smile. I remember the weather looking gloomy, thick clouds always hung in the sky while I waited at home for Father like I always would. I do recall feeling rather impatient, I wanted to slash and hack at more training dummies but Father said I always had to wait. "I shouldn't have to wait," I told Miriam._

"_Master makes the rule, we all have to obey them young Mistress," she said like she always did. It was impossible for her to ever complain or rebuke Father, he kept her employed. "Did you forget your father is Chief?"_

"_No. But I do still do not want to wait," I complained, wishing he could be home already. "Why do I have to wait? I am his daughter." Giggling, she picked up the comb from the night table and sat down behind me to comb my hair. She held on to the top of my hair as she brusquely yanked through my thick brown hair._

"_Even the Chief's daughter has to wait," said Miriam, taking out a knot without mercy. "Sorry-did you know that the former Chief of Village of Willow was said to have hair so long that she had to stay-nngh, sorry, in a tower and have servants climb up her hair and comb as they slid down?"_

"_No, ouch!" _

"_And because of that, the village was always raided so your father made a rule that all future Chieft have to keep their hair at a certain length. When your father passes, let it be far into the future, this long hair will have to go-so many knots child!"_

"_I can braid my hair, ouch, I don't wanna have to cut my hair." _

"_Last one Risa, I promise, and…there we go. Smooth sailing from here," joked Miriam, brushing through my hair peacefully. _

"_Miriam, have you seen Mother?"_

"_Why would you ask me?"_

"'_Cuz I thought you'd know."_

"_I met your father after he became Chief, I never met your mother but I don't doubt she was a beautiful woman."_

"_What does that mean?"_

"_Doubt? It means not to believe," she explained sadly, putting the brush down on the bed and sighing satisfactorily. "Your father will be coming soon, let's go downstairs to greet him ok?" I groaned, greeting Father at the door became a chore in itself. "I don't want to. Tell him I'm napping," I said while falling flat on my bed, exaggerating my snores._

"_Come now Risa, you know your father doesn't like that," scolded Miriam, picking me up and trying to drag me off the bed. "You're coming downstairs."_

"_He doesn't like anything I do. He doesn't like _me_," I retorted well enough for Miriam to stop pulling me. Miriam tearfully looks down at me, hurt that I could have ever said such a thing._

"_Don't ever say that Risa, of course he likes you. He loves you."_

"_He yells at me every day and is always mad at me," I pointed out honestly. "So he doesn't like me or love me."_

"_Enough of that. Let's go downstairs now," she pushed me along the staircase that was not creaky then. Dinner was pre-made and waiting on the dining table, smelling like grilled fish with some food native to Village of Willow. Miriam only combed my hair and prettied me up so that Father would be discouraged to shout but I knew better and was dreading his arrival. "Open the door Miriam," ordered Father. She hurried to the door, giving me a "be nice and kind to him" look and opened the door wide for him, immediately bowing to him. Likewise I bowed down to him._

"_Welcome home Chief." He grunted to her._

"_Welcome home Father." _

"_I bought you a new outfit, why not wear it, Child?" he demanded irritably._

"'_Cuz I didn't like it," picking my head up, I saw Miriam's worried expression behind Father but I did not care. I did not care about most things at that time._

"_Child, you dare tell me what you do and do not like? What I buy for you is what you wear, now go upstairs and change out of that ridiculous dress," he ordered as he went to the dining table without a complaint. _

"_No! I like it and it's not a dress, it's a kuh-mona," I held the bottom of the kimono and lifted it to show him as if that would distinguish that and a normal dress. The cleverness I have now was absent at that age and so was the ability to live with constant criticism. Why was I so stupid at that age?_

"_You're talking back to _me_? You're only a child, you don't understand the world yet silly girl. How are you supposed to get married with an uncouth tongue like that?"_

"_I'm never getting married!" I stormed out to the training room and picked up the two-handed sword. Quite heavy, I wobbled and fell but my anger gave me a surge of strength I needed to pick it up and buffet the straw dummy. Straw flew everywhere as I kept striking the dummy but Father's hand caught the sword at its blade. With his bloodied hand, he snatched it from my hands and grabbed the hilt. I was terrified, thinking he was going to physically reprimand me but instead he cut the head off the straw dummy and then threw the sword down. I began to struggle when he snatched my hand but I stopped when I saw the warm, crimson blood trickling down my tiny arm._

I am only sinking farther down. The will to fight is lost along with myself, I can only blame myself for that. I can only blame myself for the punishment I got later, if only I kept my mouth shut and learned to lock my emotions away earlier. If I was like Mother instead of like Father, I would not be here, I would have saved my world from Darkness and I would not have ever met Sia, Mizuki, Erick, Knuckles, or Mia. Being as strong as Mother would have kept me from drowning in this sea of Heartless.

"The past is painful isn't it?" asks Dori.

"Yes, it is," I say softly, exhausted and inhaling air slowly. The air I need to survive is been taken away by the Heartless. "Why do you make me suffer?"

"No Keyblade Wielder, I am not making you suffer. Rather, I'm opening your eyes and making you stronger-no one's past should ever be swept under the rug, you know?"

"You can end me here, why let me suffer?"

"That is the purpose of memories, to make you realize how human you are."

J.G.P.


	2. Chapter 2

I succumb to sleep again, hoping that I fall asleep permanently. Years ago I swore that I would never look back on how my life of suffering started but what else do I have to do in this abyss? I am so weak I cannot even try to swim back to the light that is dying every second. By now it had to have disappeared. _"Risa?" _I recognize the voice. _"_Mother?" I whisper.

"_Rest in my arms."_

"Why did you not save me from Father?"

"_Oh Risa, rest in my arms."_

"I cannot feel them."

"Don't interfere!" Dori cries out from all around me. Is...my mother trying to stop him? Too late, my mind is lurched into the past again.

"_Father where are we going?" I asked him, holding on to his hand. The cut from the day before was healing slowly, every once in a while it would open again and blood would gush out. That was the only time I had ever felt sorry for Father. "I said, where are we going?"_

"_To a chapel," answered Father, tugging me along. _

"_Why?"_

"_Hush Child, I don't want to talk to you right now."_

"_You don't love me." He ceased to walk and then went towards the temple at a faster pace. I could barely keep up with him. "Go slower!" Ignoring my plea, we stepped into the dark chapel. It is like any ordinary chapel but the one thing that stood out in there was the statue of a man behind the altar kissing a flower. Mass had been over and only a few priests were still in the pews praying and meditating. _"_Faruc," Father called out to the priest sitting in the middle pew. Faruc lifted his balding head and smiled with squinty eyes._

"_Welcome to our holy temple Chief. What can I do for you?" he says readily and then sees me. "Welcome Risa." I flinched back, there was something I did not like about that man. Something that he hid very well. "Child, step away for a moment." Reluctantly and scared, I let go of Father's hand and ran up to the altar, disregarding what Father and Faruc were saying to each other. Getting a better look at the man in front, I wondered who he was. The chief of the village was not a religious man, so why did we come here? There was nothing for either of us here._

"_Father," I turn to him but he does not look at me. "Why do all these people pray to this man kissing a flower?"_

"…_permanent and irreversible…"_

"_Father, I'm talking to you!"_

"…_pay all I can…do it?"_

_I stopped calling him when I realize he was in a serious conversation. His frown lines in addition to the wrinkles he had in his early forties made him look ten years older. Then both men face me and Father gestured for me to come. When I get to him, I asked him, "What're we doing?"_

"_Let's go." We were leaving this old chapel at last, that was what I thought. But when Furuc led us down a hidden trapdoor in the graveyard, I got scared and worried. Underneath the chapel was a network of pathways that led to one central room. The chamber had statues of not men kissing flowers but of men on their knees covered in scars. I squeezed Father's hand because I thought I saw one of them watching me. In the central chamber, there were men and women who had been tortured and enslaved, some were crying tears of blood._

"_Father I don't like it here," I commented and shook his hand but he refused to let me go. Two priests wearing white robes took my arms and stopped me from going towards Father. I watched Father drop something into Furuc's palm and he closed the sliding door shut. I cried out for him but why would anyone help me, let alone my father? The priests dropped me in the center of the room and for some reason I could not move. _

"Why did you stop the flow of the past?"

"I will not remember it. Do not let me, please."

"Do not fight it." Pain envelops my body but I am too tightly packed to soothe the worst parts. Against my will, the memory continues. "The past is what makes us what we are."

_The floor beneath me shined a yellow light in the shape of a person. The priests chanted hymns of different languages while the enslaved people cried out, spilling their blood on the drawn outline of a person. When their blood completed the outline I screamed and dropped to the floor on my knees, holding my left arm. It felt as if someone was pouring lava on my arm and then putting rocks in it. Why would Father let me suffer so much? Fathers were not supposed to leave their daughters when they were hurting. __I used to say every day he did not love me but a little piece of me assured myself that he must of loved me just a little bit. This was not love, love does not mean inflicting pain on others. Then and there, my dream of my father having a heart was crushed when something burned into my left shoulder. Was I going to hell for cutting my father? What was going to happen to me? When I dug my nails into my shoulder, it only made the agony worse. Loud clattering echoed over me, the rain and the thunder had come._

_When it was all over, Furuc led me back to my father who was waiting outside the sliding door. Furuc nodded to him and looked at me. "You can go back to your father now." I did not want to, I did not to run back to a man who let his own child suffer, so I stayed right at Furuc's side, gripping my aching left arm._

"_Let me see it," ordered Father while pulling my sleeve down. "The mark of the willow tree, I see. Walk with me."_

"_No-aaaauuugh!" The burning sensation ached and worsened when I denied Father. Against my will, I joined his side and followed him out of the chapel. He did not say a word to me except for me to stop whimpering. On the way back, he complained about the pouring rain to himself. _

When my eyes flutter open, the sun glares at them. I sit up, instantly recognizing the Village of Willow. But nobody is here, this place is as empty as a black void. "Is this a dream?" That is when I see Mother under a willow tree, smiling up at me.

"No," answers Mother light-heartedly. "Sit with me if you want." I sit in the willow tree's umbrage. "Some philosophers say that willows are the tears of a goddess."

"Are they?" I wonder, considering Mother is some sort of one.

"When I left you here for a second time, I did shed many tears."

"A second time?"

"We went to a village together to deliver a package, I'm sure you remember that?"

"That was you. I knew it."

"You have my face," she reaches to caress my face but I flinch back. She sighs and lowers her hand. "You're still not used to being touched so gently." Two birds playing with each other stop their folly to perch themselves on Mother's shoulders, chirping a soothing song. "You have your father's personality for the most part."

"If I was like you than this would be real life and not a daydream," I dismiss the idea that this is reality. "If I was strong and powerful like you then I would have been able to stop my world from falling into a dark abyss...and I could have saved my friend Clancy. I could have saved and protected Miriam and all the villagers. Nobody would have to suffer if I was strong."

"Even Rodrick?"

"Even Father."

"You were dead to him and you still wish to save him?"

"Yes, he is my father. I cannot let him…be damned for the rest of his life." She chuckles lightly and when she looks up the willow tree, a leaf falls off and then another and another. "You are crying."

"You're more like me than I thought Risa," she softly chuckles, looking dotingly at me. I quickly turn away, staring up at the cold sun.

"Why did he do this to me? Brand me with a curse that makes me obedient?" I pull my sleeve to show her although I think she must know what it already looks like. She digs her hand into the ground, holding a fistful of soil filled with some worms.

"When people reach their lowest point, their imperfections surface and they try to hide them. This worm doesn't like being above the soil and wants to conceal itself back in the ground because the birds are coming to eat it," she plucks the worm out with her other hand and lifts over one of the birds heads and the bird snatches it in its beak. "See the worm trying to make its way out? An act of desperation."

"Am I the worm or the bird?"

"You are the only one who can be the judge of that. Always know," she stands up. "That you no matter how deep into the Darkness you go, you will never lose sight of the light." Black swallows her whole and covers the entire garden of willow trees and the Heartless continue to devour me. The light that is supposed to bring me back home, I know now that I have lost it to Darkness completely. _Darkness is coming for you_. As the pain surged within my body from being crushed by the Heartless that have grown stronger and bigger, I think to myself. Darkness _has _come for me but I will not let it come again.

The Keyblade appears in my hand and with the flick of my wrist I slash the Heartless wall above, getting rid of the thickness for a few seconds. Joining my right hand, I grasp the hilt and hold my breath as the Heartless shroud my sight. _It is time for the Light to fight back_. Abruptly the weight around me vanishes as a powerful light from the Keyblade destroys the suffocating Heartless. I sigh when the light dims out and goes off and the Heartless wave is gone for now. Where the small light would have been stands the Angel Island intruder, holding the claw gun they used to take Deidra's heart. When they shoot it at me, I use the Keyblade to knock the claw and chain down and I land a direct blow at their mask. It cracks and they put their hand on their mask as it drips down to the black abyss. Then violet liquid splatters on my kimono and on their hands.

"What-no, it cannot be you," I whisper to myself, dropping my Keyblade. Clancy's glare does not waver and when he falls backward into the dark abyss, he does not utter a syllable. I bend down and reach out to him. "Clancy!" But he is lost in here; I stand up and close my eyes, clenching my fists. For all I know everything in here could be a trick.

"Someone who I care for dearly has asked me to help you. I am no longer your tormentor. Look for the lights before they vanish," says the man name Dori who gave me those flashbacks. "I will lift the veil concealing them." I open my eyes and in front of me are jade lights shining dimly, numerous of them. _Risa you have strayed but return to me_, the Master Emerald is communicating to me. I charge for the first one but the green light quickly vanishes. The one to my right I reach for disappears also and when I turn behind me, a half-dozen of green lights are veiled once again. If I stay another moment in here then I will be the worm Mother showed me. The green light behind me shines brighter than the others and then begins to die down. I jump on the light, closing my eyes as I bump into something firm but tender.

"I've had enough of people messin' with me-ohmygosh Risa," Mizuki cries out as I hold on to her legs. I am free, free from the Darkness. I can smell the pouring rain, the trash that I am lying next to, this is where I want to be.

' ' '

Inside Mizuki's hotel room, she warmed me up "cup-o-noodles" and we sit at the edge of the bed watching the news. A news reporter with dirty blonde hair was interviewing a pretentious looking man wearing an army uniform. "You will not believe that kind of shit I went through today," she stops to slurp up the noodles. I wait for my noodles to cool down.

"You will not believe mine."

"Where were you? Nobody's seen you for a couple of days-oh yeah and Knuckles is looking for you. We should probably tell him that you're ok."

"I want to stay hidden for a while Mizuki. I will explain everything later on." Before my lips could reach the first noodle, someone shrieks outside. Both of us move towards the window and Mizuki opens it and sticks her head out. The rain stopped after I got inside so outside has that post-rain scent.

"It's probably some overexcited teenager-" she is about to conclude until I raise a finger by the fire hydrant.

"See that?"

"Stay away!" a woman shrieks as she stops running to see her attacker. Then she runs farther down the street and that is when we spot the tiny Heartless glance around, antennas twitching and then it seeps back into the ground to pursue the woman.

J.G.P.

**And done!**


End file.
